


What's Said in the Dark

by Leamas



Category: The Grisha Trilogy - Leigh Bardugo
Genre: Controller-Spy Dynamics, Espionage, Missing Scene, Revenge
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-01
Updated: 2020-08-01
Packaged: 2021-03-06 03:54:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,553
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25656988
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Leamas/pseuds/Leamas
Summary: Genya reports her progress to the Darkling, and for the first time finds herself really considering what revenge means to her. Thankfully, she isn't alone with this realisation.
Relationships: The Darkling & Genya Safin, one-sided Genya Safin/The Darkling
Comments: 4
Kudos: 10





	What's Said in the Dark

**Author's Note:**

> For a prompt: _temptation, risk, instinct_. Genya and the Darkling are both easily tied as my favourite characters, but even outside of that their dynamic is one of the most interested and complex in the series.

There was no lock on the door to Genya’s bedroom and so it wasn’t a prison. She should come and go as she wished, for even though she was a servant the guards and other _otkazat’sya_ were reluctant to order her back to her room, because she was still Grisha and they didn’t like to acknowledge her at all.

Tonight as she slipped out of the Grand Palace, it was with none of the rage that usually drove her into the dark, alone on a long walk through the woods where she wouldn’t be found (although she was headed in the same direction), or to the Fabrikator’s labs where David usually let her sit and watch, as long as she didn’t touch anything. He’d let her ask him question, and he’d show her what it was that he did, but usually he just liked to work while she sat quietly. And that suited her well enough.

Recently, Genya had found herself going to Alina’s room. The Darkling had asked her to keep an eye on Alina, to befriend her, and Genya had performed that duty admirably—enough so that she sometimes found herself going to Alina to hide, telling herself that it was part of her duty to the Darkling. That it wasn’t really running away, even if she felt herself growing weak for allowing herself to wish for those long nights that they spent sitting on Alina’s bed, eating pastries and telling stories to one another. Genya carefully steered conversation away from Alina’s life at the orphanage, with Mal, to talk about life in the army and what she’d expected to happen to her had she not become Grisha—and then to what it was that she wanted now, what she hoped for. The Darkling had been right when he said that Alina was looking for someone to listen to her, and that if Genya could be that person then it would just allow them both to make Alina’s transition into life at the Little Palace all the easier. What Genya had never expected was it would be _she_ who had come to want Alina: to sit with her, holding her hands, brushing her hair, teaching Alina how to do her make-up, all while they talked. All while they listened to each other.

Genya wished that she was on her way to see Alina now.

It would be easier to keep a cool head, if she was scared. It was always with a spiteful anger that she struck out into the dark, the Grand Palace at her back; Genya, alone, pushing at some limit to how far the King could reach her. It always felt dangerous, even knowing that the King would never do anything more than ask where it was that she’d been, if he came for her and found that she wasn’t there—and that was nothing that she couldn’t avoid just by saying that he must have simply missed her, for she was in her room all night. He was an impatient man who waited for no one, least of all her: there was always someone else that he could occupy his time with, for she was nothing but a pretty face, a servant to fuck and then set aside until he remembered her.

Now she walked this same journey towards the dark forests that surrounded the Little Palace, but with intent. There was no fear to drive her forward, no surety that she was killing time that would otherwise be spent hurting her: just the decision to take one more step, again and again, until she could no longer see the Little Palace through the trees, and indeed could no longer see anything at all except for the moon and stars.

“There you are,” said the Darkling from somewhere in the shadows.

Genya stopped walking. “Yes, _moi soverniy,_ ” she said. “I’m sorry if I made you wait.”

The shadows rippled, and then he was standing in front of her.

“I haven’t been here long,” he said. “There’s no need to worry. Come, walk with me.”

She drew nearer to him, and together they continued down the path that she had walked many times before, both alone and with him. It was darker, it seemed, the moonlight wavering even as it reached them through the tree branches above. If they kept a steady pace then it would only be about half an hour before the trees opened up onto the lake, which was not nearly long enough.

“Are you okay, Genya?” he asked, as he usually did when they met. “Are you safe?”

She never was safe, not really. Genya twirled a strand of hair around her finger. “No one knows that I’m here,” she said slowly. “I’m beginning to see signs that my poison is working.”

The Darkling hummed his approval. She thought that he would ask what signs, and if he did then she would force herself to tell him even if it humiliated her to have to recount that, but the Darkling simply asked instead, “How long do you think he has before the effects become undeniable?”

“I don’t know.”

“Make a guess,” he said. Genya really didn’t know, though. “Trust your instinct.”

“Half a year,” she said. “Maybe less. Maybe only a few months.”

_Not soon enough_ , she thought, before realising what she’d just said.

“What do you think of that?”

Genya had never thought ahead to the end of this. What she was doing was assassination, and that tended to end only one way. It would be a slow, drawn-out death, but mostly she’d relished in knowing that he would have many long, painful years ahead of him as his body turned on him, failing to do as he wanted. Turning against him.

When the abuse first started, she’d dreamed of waking up to find that he was no more: a heart attack in his sleep, a hunting accident, the jealous rage of his wife finally turned him, a knife in the back by an overly ambitious noble. She’d eyed his court, wondering which was most likely to do it. Genya dreamed of a day that she would be safe from him, and because she was so young and naïve, the only way that she would ever be out of his grasp was if he was reaching for her from within his grave.

Those dreams were not about revenge.

Revenge was a dirty thing, with none of the clean politics that justified a coup or an execution. It was flesh decaying alongside ruined flesh, a decrepit body made to dig its own grave. Every time he touched her Genya wanted to claw out of her own skin, but there was satisfaction in exacting her revenge like this. Month by month, hour by hour, Genya needed time to burn away the memory of it all. For years she and the King were evenly matched: he would rape her, and she would poison him. Pain for pain, degradation for degradation. Death was waiting for him at the end of this horrible dance, but only when there was nothing left for her to take.

When she left him with his own filth and ruin, she would walk towards her freedom.

“There is a lot that I want to do,” Genya said, “once this is over. I’m looking forward to living as one of your Grisha, not just a pretty doll.”

She looked up to the Darkling, marking his silhouette as he walked next to her. He wasn’t looking at her, but instead looking thoughtfully ahead.

“You’ve thought about it.”

“Yes.” Her hands remained clenched at her side. “If I can just get through these next few months…”

“It’s always hardest,” the Darkling said, “near the end of an assignment. When what you want is almost within your grasp. It becomes too easy to believe that you already have it, but when you start to think that way then you must banish the idea completely. You aren’t finished yet. What you have done is irreversible already, but you still have more to do.”

“I’m not finished,” Genya said, her voice thick. She blinked quickly, staring right into the darkness ahead of her now. “I’ve made him pay, but not enough.”

When the Darkling stopped walking, Genya did, too, and she turned to face him. They were so close that she could hear his breathing. In the moonlight she could see his silhouette, his features all muddied by the shadows, but Genya felt how he looked at her. The intensity of his gaze felt warm.

“What he did to you is terrible,” the Darkling murmured. “Nothing that you do will ever make it okay, because it should never have happened in the first place. Even if you have worked it to our advantage. You will have your revenge, Genya. As he has stolen years from you, so too will you steal from him, and you will use his own greed to do it. But when this is over, you will still grieve for the years that you’ve lost. That’s normal. Do you understand, Genya?”

She tried to see through the dark, to see him with her own eyes as clearly as she imagined it.

“Yes,” she said, forcing herself not to choke on the word. She was so good at saying the right thing without flinching. Why did she find it so difficult now?

“Do not mistake your grief for unanswered revenge,” the Darkling insisted. “When this is over, you will know that all the suffering and indignity that he has subjected you to has been paid onto him in kind. You are his victim, and you could not have done anything else. But for the rest of his life, he will have to live with the fact that he has no one to blame but himself.”

Even as a tear ran down her cheek, Genya was certain that there was truth in what the Darkling said.

She wondered, sometimes, if it would have helped for her to let him rescue her the first time that she’d run to him. No—Genya knew that she’d made the right choice, to stay in the Palace. It was along this same path that Genya discussed her ideas for a poison with the Darkling, in the months after he’d agreed to help her take her revenge. Soon it would be over: all of this, all of Genya’s pain. It frightened her horribly to think that what happened in the next few months would have to be enough, she would have to be satisfied with it, because after that the King would be out of her reach and she would never have another chance. And there was still time to fail, to be caught, and if that happened now…

It was too terrible to consider.

“What do you want in your life as my Grisha?”

It came as a relief to have something else to think about, but he may as well have asked her what she wanted in her life on the moon, though, because Genya couldn’t imagine anything except for _this_.

“I want to live in the Little Palace,” she said at last. She wanted a room with a lock, and she wanted to hold the key. “I want the others to know what I did… that might never be possible, though.”

“Not at first. This will be your secret for a long time, but one day it will be possible. When this is over, everyone will know what you have done for us. For me.”

Genya tried to think of something to say to that, but so many questions raced through her. Would anyone except the Darkling understand why she did this? _How_ she poisoned the King? Would they know that she was his victim first, before she took matters into her own hands? She didn’t know what she preferred, but she didn’t want any of the people that looked down their noses at her and spat at her, called her _traitor, whore_ , to think that she did this for their sake.

“I’m doing this for me,” Genya said. “Because it has to be done, and I had the chance to do it, but when it’s over I want everyone to know that they have my filthy, selfish revenge to thank for the fact that he’s dead.”

The Darkling took her hand in both of his, and a rush of power ran between them. It was more overwhelming than her anger, than her hate. It made her feel complete.

“When this is over, whatever you want will be yours,” he said. “If you want everyone to know your rage, then they will. They’ll understand it. And if you want a quiet life, where you can finally be safe, then I can give you that. It would be my honour.”

“I don’t want that.”

“It wouldn’t suit you. You’re too powerful to ever lived quietly.” He stroked the back of her hand, and Genya shivered. “This story will be yours, to tell to the world or to hold close to your heart. You’ve earned that right. So think about what you want. There’s still time to decide who you will be when this is over.”

“I want a kefta that marks me as my own person,” Genya said. “I want a place at your side, as one of your soldiers.”

_I want to be loved. I want to kiss someone just because I want to—for myself, for love. Not just because I want to ruin them._

“You are my soldier,” the Darkling said. “My spy. You’re brave in a way that I cannot reward.”

_I want you to kiss me_ , Genya realised. For a moment, in the silence, she thought that he would. Here, where they were alone and no one could see them… where it would be entirely hers, just because she wanted it. She’d never been kissed before, and never even considered that she might want it; Genya didn’t think herself a romantic, only as a fleeting romantic desire. And now her heart was racing, her mouth was dry.

“This is enough of a reward,” Genya said, squeezing his hand.

“Oh, Genya,” the Darkling said. He put a hand on her shoulder, and she took a step closer to him. “Have you really been so mistreated that you think this is anything at all?”

She didn’t dare to raise a hand to touch him, although she could: he was so close. It would be so easy for him to fold himself around her, to hold her, and Genya hoped that he would. She wanted him to touch her. To love her. To protect her.

He squeezed her hand, and pulled away. The loss as his fingers pulled away from hers was palpable, and almost immediately she wanted it back.

“There is still so much more that I have to ask of you,” he said, as they continued walking.

Was it her imagination, or did he sound sad as he said it?

Genya straightened her shoulders and continued after him. She was his soldier, his spy. Whatever it was that he her to be, she would become. And she would be grateful, as she always has been. 

“I’m yours to command.” The hardness in her own voice surprised her.


End file.
